What WhatsApp’s blue tick really means

Sorry, you’re busted

The days of claiming that you hadn’t seen that WhatsApp message flashing on your phone are over: techs at the company’s HQ in Silicon Valley have invented the double blue tick, which confirms when a recipient has read the message.

Previously people were climbing up the walls after not receiving a reply following a double green tick message but actually, contrary to popular belief, that never meant the message had been read. One tick means sent, two ticks means delivered and now two blue ticks means read.

As you would imagine, not everyone’s thrilled about this development. It’s bound to invite torment. You’ll either spend your life making excuses or agonising over unresponsive friends. Either way, for WhatsApp’s 600 million users, there ain’t nowhere to hide.

Update: Following the backlash of its blue tick feature, in an update exclusive to Android users with a Whatsapp beta version, users can now disable the blue ticks or “Read Receipts” function. You can all breathe a sigh of relief now – that is if you’re a beta user.